Eli and Matea sayings

Eli and Matea have both been saying some new things recently!

Eli has increasingly been talking about, or referring to, things that happened in the past.  Instead of saying something something happened "yesterday," though, he'll say that something happened "last day."  As in, "remember when we played at Lexi and Tori's house last day, Daddy?"  I'll reply and use the correct term, e.g. "I do remember when we did that yesterday, Eli!"  Hearing Eli say "last day" is cute; it will be interesting to see when he starts saying "yesterday"!

Eli's favorite word a few weeks ago was "panic."  Whenever he was feeling exited about something, or just feeling silly, he'd randomly say "panic!" and then just grin or laugh.  It didn't really make sense -- I still don't think he understands what the word means -- but it was cute anyway!

This past week, the new word of the moment for Eli is "punka."  That's the word he's been breaking out this week when he feels silly.  It makes even less sense than "panic" -- since, as far as we can tell, he made it up himself -- but it's funny!  (Editorial note: Missy just looked over my shoulder at this post, and she informs me that the "correct" pronunciation is "punga", with a "g".  I still maintain it's "punka," though.   I guess only Eli knows for sure!)

Matea, meanwhile, has added a high-pitched squeal to her repertoire of sounds she can make.  She started doing it one day while watching Eli, Lexi, and Tori run around and play and squeal at each other.

Matea has also started making "raspberries" with her lips over the past few days.  She gets a big smile on her face when she does a raspberry, and then Missy or Grandma K. or I does it back to her!  Maybe she'll be a trumpet player like Daddy (and Grandma S., and Great-Grandma Synder (Conant) -- Matea would be a 4th generation trumpet player)!

Trick-or-treat time!

We went trick-or-treating in Jeff and Lori’s neighborhood again this year, and had so much fun! This time Jeff and Lori actually had a house, so they took turns staying behind to hand out candy, while we just free loaded and were takers and not givers. :)

The gang's all ready to go!

The cutest dragon in the world

The kids were so excited that they were just running from house to house. They were so polite though and Eli would say thank you and then wave bye to everyone too. After only going up and down the main street Eli’s pumpkin bucket was already almost full and he asked Jon to carry it for him. When we dumped the candy in the stroller to lighten the bucket load though, Elijah decided he didn’t want his bucket anymore – “I’ll push the stroller now, Grandma!” Hmm, smart kid. Never leave your candy unattended!

My new candy bucket is bigger and has better suspension.

At one house Eli was given a jawbreaker in his bucket (which he’s not allowed to eat, as we had already explained to him earlier in the day at Jon’s work). Eli reached back in his bucket, grabbed the jawbreaker, and handed it back to the lady at the door, telling her, “I’m not allowed to eat these. Thank you!” It was so adorable. What a cutie.

Eli's about to get the jawbreaker . . .

After about an hour and a half we had gone through less than half of the subdivision, but Elijah asked to stop trick-or-treating. He was wiped out and said he wanted to go home and rest. We headed back and Lori and her kids continued on to get more loot. Eli was even so tired that he accepted a ride in the stroller on the way home (he says the stroller is for babies now and doesn’t want to ever ride in it).

I'm so tired I can barely walk.

In fact, I'm so tried I'll accept a ride in the baby-mobile.

As far as Matea, she LOVED being outside and seeing all the kids. I wore her in the Baby Bjorn and she was kicking up a storm, smiling, and literally squealing with delight when the kids were running around. By the end of the night she was tired as well and fell asleep before we were done. Still, her first Halloween she had a lot of fun (if not any candy). :) I’m already looking forward to next year and seeing her toddle along with the rest of the kids.

One tuckered out ladybug . . .

When we got home Jon and Eli counted up Eli’s candy haul from that night, and he had 104 pieces of candy (not even counting what Mommy and Grandma ate on the way home). I think that should tide him over for a bit! 

I love this picture because you can see the dragon eyes but not Eli's eyes. It makes me smile.

Doing the annual pumpkin dump. What a haul!

The next day we were off to visit Jon's family, and Elijah donned his costume once again to trick-or-treat at Grandpa Bob's door. And this time he didn't get just one piece of candy - he got the whole bowl of candy all to himself! Our last trick-or-treating stop definitely had the highest candy ratio! Grandpa and Grandma's houses always seem to have high yield. :)

Hey, my roar gets me candy here too!

They just dumped the WHOLE bowl of candy in my bag. This is the best day ever!

Elijah hauled in enough candy to last until next year, so it's a good thing we’re enacting the “parent tax” on candy, as Jeff called it . . . we’re helping him “redistribute” the candy wealth. Bad idea for government but a great idea for trick-or-treat! :) And next year we'll have two pumpkin buckets to raid. Yummy yummy!

Trick-or-treat at Daddy's Work!

For Halloween this year we headed off to Jon’s office to go trick-or-treating from office to office again. A few weeks ago, after we bought Eli's costume, Elijah asked me (without prompting) if we were going to go to Daddy's work and get candy again. I was surprised he remembered it from last year, but he did! The extra bonus for this year was that we had three girls with us to join in the fun. Trick-or-treating was actually on Halloween this year, and it was Friday so we had Lexi and Tori with us, and then, of course, our little Matea came along as well. So, a dinosaur, a soldier, Rapunzel, a little ladybug, and a mommy went off to get treats at GFS on Friday afternoon.

Eli and the girls had a great time – Lexi quote, “This is awesome. I love it here.” – and even got to see a giant blow-up Scooby-doo (which the girls gave hugs and kisses to and told him that they love him). We also saw one of Jon’s co-workers dressed up as Batman, and Tori was almost beside herself with excitement as she told him, “You are my favorite superhero.” I’m not sure she understood that it wasn’t really Batman, but I wasn’t going to burst her bubble. :)

It’s really cool that Jon’s office has such a fun family event, and there were a ton of kids there. I’m so glad we got to go again, and Eli’s already asking to go back next year (well, he’s actually asking to go back every day and I’m explaining to him that it’s only once a year). And this year since the office visit was actually on Halloween it was a good warm up for the main event!

Checking out the "Gordy" pumpkin - Tori said, "This guy's creepy!" Surveying their candy options, a critical step.

Scooby Scooby Doo, we found you. You're working at Gordon Food Service . . .

We've collected it, now it's time to eat it!

Ladybug (minus her hat) on the table!

Pumpkin Carving!

For Halloween this year we decided to carve a big pumpkin and then paint little ones. For some reason I went insane and bought two big pumpkins (they were 20% off) but then decided I really didn’t want to carve two pumpkins. So we gave one to Jeff and Lori and opted to only carve one. Eli really wasn’t that interested in the affair much. The highlight for Eli was designing the pumpkin face with Daddy while Mommy opened up the pumpkin. Jon drew circles on paper and then Eli drew pumpkin faces in them to show us the surprised face he wanted the pumpkin to have. Eli was really good, which surprised us! He drew eyes and mouths and they were really interesting, so we actually did go with one of Eli’s own designs for the face of our pumpkin this year.

Once I had the “patient” opened up Eli peeked in to see what was inside the pumpkin, but quickly told me, “Ugh, it smells Mommy,” and wanted nothing more to do with it. I tried to get him to help scoop out the insides and get messy, but there was no way he was touching that “gicky stuff.” He even asked me, “why do you want to touch that, Mommy?”

Once the pumpkin was carved Eli wasn’t too excited about having the candle inside of it. He liked it without the candle and kept swiping the candle when it wasn’t lit and carrying it off. So our cute pumpkin has only been lit a few times, once we’ve managed to relocate the candle. Oh well! Mommy and Daddy had fun carving our pumpkin!

I want the pumpkin to have this face!

Picking out which of Eli's drawings is the winning face!

Mommy performing the "facelift"

Ta-da! Just like Eli's surprised face!

  All lit up and still looking surprised. Whoever carved this one did an excellent job.

Pumpkin rider!